Homecoming Queen
by broadwaystarxoxo
Summary: "It's such a shame that our homecoming queen had a lot to prove and so many to please. She's just somebody's daughter, looking for somebody to love her."  Oneshot songfic about Rachel after she ran from she and Barru's wedding.   Please read & review!


I hope you like it…this kind of came to me while I was listening to this song. I kind of like it a lot (: Tell me what you think!

Disclaimer: I don't own Friends or the song.

Song: "Homecoming Queen" by Hinder (I love them.)

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><p><strong>Well, it's been five years since I've seen her face. She's a holy ghost lost without a trace. And now we're left with the what-ifs. <strong>

She was positive that everyone was staring at her. Before, she would have told them to mind their own business. But she didn't care now. Her wedding dress was taking up three subway seats, but she still didn't care. They could stand up.

Rachel was so confused. She didn't want to marry anyone right now, especially not Barry. Her family obviously didn't understand that, nor did the rest of the people she cared about. _I tried to tell them_, she thought. _I tried to tell them this wasn't what I wanted. It's their fault I'm leaving._

Rachel didn't even know where she was going. She was only twenty-two. The world was so big…and yet at the same time, it was so _small_. The only world she knew was the world of credit cards and carefree living.

She glanced up, looking out the subway's window. There was a homeless man sitting outside, leaning against a light post. Was that what was going to become of her? Rachel shivered and burrowed herself deeper into her overly expensive white dress.

**It's been five years since she left for LA. She's an angel with a dirty face. **

Rachel didn't even know where she was going. She had planned only as far as running out of the wedding. The other details hadn't seemed important until now.

All she wanted was to be loved. That's all that really mattered to her. Not loved by a husband or by a rich family with empty promises—no, she wanted real people to care for her, people that wouldn't lie and manipulate her, people that wouldn't hang out with her for the sake of her status. She wanted to be loved for who she really was.

She had always portrayed herself as someone who was confident, someone that you didn't want to mess with unless you wanted your reputation ruined. She had quickly learned that she got respect this way.

But now she realized that she had made a wrong turn too early. She hadn't been respected because people cared about her, she was respected because she was a bitch.

But at least it was respect.

**And it seems to me, she's a casualty of all the pressure that we put on her, and now we've lost her for good. **

Rachel could recall several moments in her life when the demands of being who she was felt like they were crushing her. Her mother was always comparing her to Amy and Jill. "When Amy was your age, she won the pageant. But I guess first runner up is alright." "Look at that, Jill's already had her first kiss and she's in fifth grade! Rachel was in seventh grade."

Rachel couldn't stand it anymore; the pressure. But she'd learned how to make up for it: she had to do everything that her mother wanted her to do, be everything that society wanted her to be. And so she did just that. When she lost her virginity at fifteen, she received nothing but praise from her friends. When she wore short skirts and low tops, she received nothing but attention from the boys. When she made fun of her fat friend Monica behind her back, everyone giggled along with her. Everyone wanted to be around Rachel Green. Hell, everyone wanted to _be _Rachel Green.

But Rachel had been dying inside. She was dying for more acceptance, dying for the _right _kind of acceptance. She just didn't know it back then.

**It's such a shame, shame, shame that our homecoming queen was a lot like you, and a lot like me. And she never walked on water. Guess no one really saw her. **

"Rachel Green is perfect. She's dating Chip, and she's super pretty, and all the boys like her. Just don't get on her bad side, or your life will be over as you know it."

The runaway bride started crying even louder. Why wasn't anyone asking her what was wrong? Did they think she had it all under control? Why wasn't anyone confronting her? All she wanted was for someone in the world to care that she had been betrayed by her own family, betrayed by a man that she thought she loved before, betrayed by everyone. Why had they made her this way? Why had they molded her into this person? Had nobody stopped to think that Rachel Green, the perfect and popular bitch, was dying inside?

Rachel felt to see if the bottle was still tucked in the waistband of her pantyhose.

Nobody loved her. Nobody wanted her.

It was still there.

She smiled.

**She was so adored by everyone. When it came to looks she was next to none. Then she hooked up with the wrong someone, and he promised everything under the sun. **

She could remember the first time that a boy didn't act like a pig in front of her. She was at the mall with Monica. Normally she didn't like to go out with Monica; she preferred hanging out with her best friend in private places, where no one could see them hanging out together. It was stupid, really; she was twenty one, and should have known better by then. But, after all, she was Rachel Green.

They couldn't hang out at Monica's, because Monica's older brother Ross was home from college, and all he ever did was try to impress Rachel. They couldn't be at Rachel's, because her parents were fighting about the bills. So they went to the mall.

She could clearly remember the crowded food court. Rachel walked three steps ahead of Monica, carrying her small salad, not wanting to be seen with Monica and her tray full of cheeseburgers and fries. They had to sit next to people they didn't know because it was very crowded. Monica was sitting next to some old women that were gossiping, and next to Rachel was a man that looked to be about 23, 24 years old.

"Hi, I'm Barry," he said. Rachel looked at him. He wasn't looking at her breasts, like other guys did. He was looking at her face, smiling warmly. His name was Barry.

Two weeks later, Rachel took Barry to her house to meet her parents. When they found out that he had just graduated med school to be an orthodontist, they were thrilled.

**And it seems to me, she's a casualty of all the pressure that he put on her, and now we've lost her for good. **

"Rachel, you need to act like a big girl here. Suck it up; your parents want you to marry me, my parents want me to marry you, and we can have a big house and…"

"Barry, I don't _want _that! I thought you were a different kind of person..."

More tears escaped from Rachel's eyes as the memories clouded her thoughts. She could barely remember the whirlwind two weeks that led to she and Barry's wedding because her emotions had been chaotic inside of her. On one hand, she was Rachel Green, and she was thrilled to be getting married before all of her friends. She had always been an early bloomer, and this should definitely be no different. She loved trying on the lavish dresses, she loved how everyone congratulated her, she loved how she was the talk of the town.

But there was another part of her that didn't want it to be like this at all. She didn't want to be with Barry for the rest of her life, she didn't want to be a married woman when she was barely old enough to legally drink the champagne at their wedding reception. When she tried to imagine her future with Barry, she couldn't find any happiness in it.

She was too scared to tell her mother about her cold feet because her mother was the one that was pushing Rachel into this in the first place. She didn't want to tell her father because he would blow up about how much he had paid for all of this. She didn't want to tell her sisters because they would laugh at her and call her a wimp, a chicken.

And she certainly couldn't tell Barry about it.

**It's such a shame, shame, shame that our homecoming queen was a lot like you, and a lot like me. **

Rachel didn't get why they couldn't realize that she was a person too. That deep down inside her, maybe she _did _have feelings. Everyone just assumed that Rachel Green was the typical snotty bitch that would leap at the chance to marry a rich orthodontist.

Maybe she had feelings, too. Did anyone consider that?

Rachel reached for the bottle tucked in her pantyhose. Her mother had given it to her just in case she got pre-wedding headaches that apparently many people get from nervousness.

**And she never walked on water. Guess no one really saw her. **

Rachel wondered if she could dry-swallow them. She sat up and looked around to see if anyone was still staring at her. They clearly were, but when she looked up they quickly averted their gazes to the windows. She smirked and took the bottle out from her pantyhose, revealing it to the light. Aspirin.

She experimented with one pill but quickly learned that her throat was not going to make it easy on her. She spat the pill back up and threw it on the ground. She still had half a bottle left.

Half a bottle would do the trick, right?

**It's such a shame, shame, shame that our homecoming queen had a lot to prove and so many to please. She's just somebody's daughter, just looking for somebody to love her. **

Rachel started crying again when the bus stopped. She walked to the front, ignoring the stares from everyone including the driver. She hopped off and immediately started searching for a water fountain or a coffeehouse. Just somewhere with liquid that she could use to down the pills.

She had tried to pretend to be perfect. She had tried to play by the rulebook that society gave her. It was too much. She couldn't satisfy anyone's expectations of her. She had tried her whole life, but escaping through the window at she and Barry's wedding made her realize that it wasn't going to happen. She just couldn't do it. Why couldn't somebody love her for who she was and not expect her to be more? She had prayed for the day when she would meet people that would do that for her. It didn't have to be a boyfriend or a clique that followed her everywhere she went, like she had her whole entire life. She had found that she didn't want those things anymore.

She just wanted friends.

Well, it was too late for that to happen.

Rachel spotted a coffee shop across the street and made a beeline for it. She spilled the contents of the container into her cupped hand, throwing it away in a nearby trashcan. This was it.

**She's just somebody's daughter, just looking for somebody to love her. **

Rachel burst through the door and ran to the counter.

"Rachel?" she heard a familiar voice call. She turned around just as she was about to order.

It was Monica Geller. There were four other people with her.

Rachel didn't know what it was; a foreshadowing feeling, perhaps. Whatever it was was strong enough to make her stop what she was doing. She turned around to face her best friend that she hadn't seen in years. She looked at Monica's warm, welcoming smile, and then looked at the four others' faces, and Rachel was flooded with a certain feeling of happiness that she couldn't quite place.

It was hope.

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><p>I hope you liked it (: Please review! Thank you!<p> 


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